Response to:
Shakleford - waste, dope and illegal entry

I agree that the military can certainly perform border patrol duties. I see a military, that in my opinion is turning into a welfare state. I know that America is making strides to take away some of the automatic benefits soldiers, airmen, and sailors enjoy today (like free medical and free housing). I also see whole cities growing within government confines, which include thousands of golf courses, thousands of mall-type constructs, and Billions of dollars spent on training and the high-tech training aids the military plays with every day.

I see a military that is going administrative (or cyber) rather than a military on the front. Shoot, half the jobs the military does now could be done by civilians. Remember when they put civilians in as contractors to remove the military's requirement to do KP? Well, for some reason, they won't make contractors out of a bevy of administrators (network jockies, computer weenies, clerks, etc.).

At the very least, make part of a military person's tenure duty "on the front, on the border". It seems more important to show a military person what it is like to serve outdoors, on a line, rather than inside a training aid, shooting at visual enemies all day.

Now, having said all that, it's important to note that the other half of the military - those who are outdoors and those who serve on the line now are already in the trench. Of course, knowing America like I do, I'd bet that were this note executed and implemented, it would be those same grunts on the line who would be picked to go to the border, not the admin weenies - they'd stay in the training aids spending those billions of laboratory dollars.